Back to the roots – rehearsal

Our next RollinRestaurant is coming up and the theme is “Back to the roots”. Therefore I have been experimenting with different dishes including roots. We are striving to use different roots in each course. We already have an exciting beet dish so this one didn’t make it. However it was a great starter.

Mackerel, golden beet, horse radish, salicornes and lemon foam

Ingredients for 4 pers

• 1 mackerel
• 0,1 l vinegar
• 0,2 l sugar
• 0,3 l water
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 1 onion
• 5 pepper corns
• 1 golden beet
• 50 g salicornes
• one lemon
• 0,2 l fish broth
• 25 g butter
• horse radish
• 2 tbsp creme fraiche

Start with the mackerel. Fillet the fish. Cook vinegar, sugar, water, onions and pepper corns for a couple of minutes. Let it cool. Add the fillets. Let it marinate 24 h.

Boil the golden beet in water until tender. Remove the skin, cut into small squares and marinate the beet in some lemon juice and olive oil.

Mix creme fraiche and grated horse radish. Cook the fish stock, and juice from 1/2 a lemon. Remove from heat and add butter. Whisk and just before serving, mix with a blender to a foam.

Cut the fish into pieces and arrange with the horse radish cream, golden beet, salicornes and foam.

Music: Listened to Mumford and Sons Liar

Colourful soup with smoked fish

We gave our selves a camera for christmas. The instructions contain 500 pages so we decided to just try it out. There are plenty of room for improvement but coming from me, this is a great picture.

It is a very simple but delicious starter, inspired by the Russian Borscht.

Beet root soup with smoked trout, apple, capers and horseradish

Ingredients

• 4 beet roots
• 1 tbsp Vinegar
• 1 tsp sugar
• starch
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 smoked trout
• 1 apple
• 2 tbsp creme fraiche
• 2 tbsp grated horse-radish
• watercress
• 1 tbsp capers

Start with the soup. Extract the juice from the beets in a juice separator. Heat with vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper. Add the starch for the right consistency. Let it cool and serve luke warm.

Mix creme fraiche with half of the horse-radish. Cut the apple in baton and the fish in smaller pieces. Arrange fish, horse-radish, capers, creme fraiche, apple and cress on a plate. Add the soup.

Enjoy!

Music: Listened to Blur Under the westway

The best Sweden has to offer

From Haparanda’s northern islands to just south of Piteå, the enormous flow of fresh water from the mighty rivers of Swedish Lapland has created the world’s largest brackish water archipelago. Here, and only here, do vendace provide the exclusive, deep reddish-gold caviar, Kalixlöjrom, the red gold of the Gulf of Bothnia.

Löjrom has an intense salty taste and a very pleasurable fish taste. If you get the chance to try it, take it. The most classic way of eating Löjrom is together with a toast or potato pancake, sour creme, lemon and finely chopped red onion. If it is served with potato pancakes it is my all time favorite starter and I have it every time I go back to Sweden.

You shouldn’t change a winning concept but here I did it with good result.

The Löjrom is served with cauliflower puree, pickled onion, apple baton, caramelized apple and dill. In the glass I had one of the best ales I had in 2012 Oppigård Winter ale and a Linie Aquavit.

Music: Listened to Tallest man on earth  - “1904“

A Swedish Christmas Carol

It is 4 PM. It is cold and it is dark but heading home thru my hometown a day before Christmas eve is a pleasant walk. There are plenty of lights in every window and you could see the positive expectations in the faces you meet.

24 hours later most of the Swedes are full, just stopped watching cartoons and are waiting for the Santa to arrive. Eating a huge buffet, watching cartoons and greet Santa are the traditional way of celebrating Christmas.  At 3 o´clock after the buffet most people sit down and watch one hour Disney cartoons. And the older generation has done this since 50 years! 50 years ago I have understanding for this habit, but today when every family can watch cartoons round the clock…I must admit it is a weird tradition. There are only two reasons I can think; 1) people need to lay down in the sofa and digest all the food they just consumed, 2) they are getting tired of their relatives and need a break.

After the cartoons, dad needs to go out and buy the newspaper. As if there was no better think to do on Christmas. Unfortunately he then misses the arrival of Santa.

However the most important tradition takes place before the cartoons and the Santa visit – the julbord. The julbord is a long lived tradition and the main ingredients have not changed over the year. It contains lots of fat fish (herring and salmon), smoked fish and meat and lots of different pork dishes. Therefore it takes an empty stomach to make it through all the delicacies.

Eating a traditional julbord, you should at least eat five different plates;

1. Different kinds of pickled herring
2. All other cold fish dishes, such as cured and smoked salmon,
3. Cold meat such as smoked and salted ham and sausages
4. Warm meat (Köttbullar, sausages, ribs)
5. Sweets (chocolate and sweets with traditional Christmas flavouring, ginger, cinnamon, clove).

In our family the focus is on herring. The last couple of years we have made at least 10 different pickled herring each Christmas. We try new tastes each year and this year’s favorites were a tomato and capers herring and ginger, fennel hering.

A julbord without Snaps is like a Italian dinner without wine – not an option. Our traditon is to purchase the special Aquavit Aalborg bring out each year. We are only allowed to drink these Snaps at Christmas and therefore it is hard to empty them. We started this tradition 1996 and so far we have emptied all bottles until 2002. The 2012 edition was one of the best with a nice touch of caraway and dill.

Do you wonder what happens after Santa has left? We bring the best of the Julbord on the table and eat it all over again.

Music: Nu är det jul igen

Asparagus with grey gurnard and lemon gnocchis

It is that lovely time of the year again – asparagus season. We do our best to help the region’s farmers. This is a nice one where you could easily change the type of fish depending on what your local fisherman has available. This was the first time I cooked grey gurnard (Knorrhane, Knurrhahn) and if you haven’t tried it, you should.

Ingredients

• 800 g grey gurnard
• 1 kg asparagus (green and white)
• 400 g boiled potatoes
• 0,2 l flour
• 1 egg
• 1 lemon
• 1 shallot
• 0,1 l olive oil
• parmesan

Start with the gnocchi. Work the boiled and riced potatoes with the flour, lemon zest and the egg to a roll of dough. Cut into pieces. Boil in salted water for 3 minutes (the gnocchi should come to the surface. Remove the gnocchi and put them in a bowl with icy water. Fry them in butter 2 min before serving.

Peel the white asparagus and cook for 7 minutes in water with a pinch salt and sugar. After 4 min add the green asparagus (leave two uncooked for the serving).

Make a sauce of the lemon juice, olive oil and finely chopped shallots. Add salt and pepper.

Fry the fish. Mix the asparagus with the sauce and the fried gnocchi. Slice the parmesan and the green asparagus and use for garnish.

Music: Listened to Graceland with Paul Simon

Winter cod

As you probably have noticed we love cod. It is extremly hard not to buy cod when you see the fresh fillet or the thick cod loins, at our local store often placed next to the lovely but so grey coalfish, and then the cod looks even nicer with it’s white flesh. Anyway this is not to be a declaration of love to all you Cods out there But make this dish, I promise that you will enjoy it. And you can of course use regular cod.

• 800 g Winter cod with skin
• 1 Leek, cut in 3 centimeter pieces
• 20 Hazelnuts, cut
• Butter
• 1 Black salsify
• 1/2 Cauliflower
• 1 dl Youghurt
• 2 Lemons, fruit flesh
• 1 tbsp Sugar
• 1 teespoon Salt

Start with the lemons; cut fillet and marinate them in their own juice together with sugar and salt.

Boil the cauliflower until it’s done, approximately 15-20 minutes. When done;  use a mixer, add yoghurt and mix until you have a smooth pure. Season with salt and pepper.

In the meantime peel the black salsify and cut it in half centimeter pieces. Wash the leek and cut it in 3 centimeter pieces.

Set the oven to 100 degrees Celsius. Heat up a pan and before adding butter fry both ends of the leek pieces until they are “sooty”, remove them from the pan and leave them in the oven until everything is done.

Add butter to the pan and fry the cod with its skin side down. When almost done turn it around just to get a nice colour on the flesh side, place the fish on to your plates. Add more butter to the pan to quickly fry the black salsify pieces.

At the same time use a small casserole; heat up butter and the cut hazelnuts until the butter becomes a nice golden brown colour.

Serve, and don’t forget to add the lemon fillet!

Music: Listening to Caligola – Back to earth

RollinRestaurant #4 Wild at heart

Last Saturday we opened the doors to the fourth RollinRestaurant. This time the nice restaurant Naked Lunch hosted the event.

The menu Wild at heart contained lots of great stuff from the forest and like the last time the menu had a Scandinavian touch. Many had their first experience with elk and we included lingonberries in different textures to each course. On the RollinRestaurant site you will find all details. We had a great evening and were very satisfied with the food we put on the table. Judging from the nice posts from Zoe & James (Uberlin) and Boris (Berlintourist) we were not the only ones having a great evening;)

What to eat the rest of my life

Among friends we often discuss the best five films ever or five albums to bring to a desert island. Of course we also discuss what would be the dish you would eat if you only could pick one to have everyday for the rest of your life. The last question is a tricky one. You need to find a dish that is tasty, but it should also be one that you could vary so that you are not bored til death after the first week. My pick so far is meat fondue. It’s delicious and variable.

The choice of starter is much easier for me. There is one starter that never disappoints me, Löjrom (vendace roe). The best roe comes from the water outside the small town Kalix in the north of Sweden but the americans also produce vendace roe. The roe has a salty, light fishy taste and should be served with sour cream, chopped red onion, lemon and either a blini or a potato cake. I prefer the latter one.

The Swedes are not the only fans of Löjrom. When the owner and star chef of El Bulli, Ferran Adrian, was asked to describe all players in Barcelona with a dish, he picked Löjrom to describe the new Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic (At this point the Catalans had high thoughts of the Swede).

If you have not yet tried this delicacy, this is one of the top reasons why you should pay Sweden a visit.

Löjrom, sour creme, red onion, potato cake

Ingredients for 4 persons

• 50 g Löjrom (vendace roe)
• 4 tsp sour creme
• 1 chopped red onion
• 3 potatoes
• 1 lemon

Grate the potatoes, make for small thin cakes flavoured with salt and pepper. Fry in a buttered pan. Serve the potato cake with sour creme, chopped red onion and Löjrom. Arrange with lemon.

Serve with a beer and a snaps. Enjoy!

Music:  Helan går

A great start of the year!

We haven’t been that active at all on the blog the last couple of weeks. One reason is that we went to Sweden to celebrate Christmas and had lots to prepare. Each year we are having a traditional Swedish julbord (buffet), and you should fill up at least 10 different plates. My favorite is the herring and in my family, this is where we put our focus. This year we served eight different marinated herrings. Unfortunately we had too much snaps, so there were only very blurry photos. We’ll try again next year.

When back in Berlin we were really tired of herring, ham, meatballs, etc and therefore payed our local butcher Filetstück a visit. We bought two huge dry aged entrecôtes, wich we grilled and served with a handful of fried padrones, salt and pepper. So easy but so tasty! We promise to blog more actively in the future.

Music: Listening to Happy New Year by Abba

My favorite winter vegetable served with zander

I had a teacher in the high-school called Zander. She was old and reminded me more of the old pike than a quick zander. Zander or pikeperch is a real delicacy and one of the few game fishes that you could fish in the rivers and seas surrounding Berlin. In this dish the fish is accompanied by my favorite winter vegetable, jerusalem artichoke and chanterelle. This is a dish that everyone could prepare. Enjoy!

Fried zander with chanterelle and puree of jerusalem artichoke

• 700 g zander fillet with skin
• 0,5 liter chanterelle
• 100 smoked pork belly
• 2 shallots (finely chopped)
• 300 g jerusalem artichoke
• 200 g potatoes
• 0,1 liter creme fraiche
• 1 l chicken broth

Start with the puree. Peel potatoes and artichokes and cut into pieces. Boil in chicken broth. When the vegetables are done, strain and mix the potatoes and artichokes with the creme fraiche. Flavor with salt and white pepper.

Fry chanterelle, smoked meat and shallots in butter on high heat for 3 min.

Fry the zander on the skin side in butter for 3 min. Flavor with salt and pepper. Turn the fish around and remove the pan from the heat. After two minutes the fish is ready to serve.

Arrange the mushroom mix on a plate. Put the fish on top and serve with the puree on the side. Enjoy!

Music: Listened to Fishes by Cat Empire